Pandemics and Plagues

(4 Credits)

How have writers, scientists, artists, philosophers, musicians, performers, playwrights, and citizens responded to the outbreak of infectious disease across the centuries and around the world? What kinds of stories, narratives, and archives have shaped artistic, medical, and governmental responses? This course uses humanistic inquiry to engage with pandemics and plagues. Our case studies include bubonic plague, tuberculosis, cholera, malaria, 1918 influenza, HIV/AIDS, and COVID-19. The course will engage a rich array of materials and approaches by focusing on themes such as historical plagues, plagues in literature, the impact of race, gender, and class on pandemic responses, war and pandemics, plus theatrical, film, and visual representations of disease.